Development Diary 3: Senua

15 Sep Development Diary 3: Senua

The 3rd installment of our development diary series focuses on Hellblade’s protagonist Senua. In this video we show her journey from original concept through to her look in the final teaser trailer.

In the Development Diary you will see a short glimpse of the hi-res Senua render created by our Senior Character Artist Claire in Mental Ray and Maya. Here is the render shot from the trailer, plus several other angles:

It is important to say that, as with most game characters, Senua’s model will evolve throughout the course of the project. She is currently work-in-progress, but we’ve been very happy with the response we’ve had to her design so far.

29 Comments

Thank you again for another Dev Diary, Matthew! Senua’s is shaping like a fasctinating character. From the story of the mysteriously forgotten Roman goddess, to this wild, savage take on feminity. I highly prefer this representation of women instead of Bayonetta’s.

I just have one thing to ask of the Hellblade team. While I appreciate the amount of detail that was put into Senua’s design, please watch out for pesky clipping issues with floating/moving parts! Dante looked great in DmC, but his coat clipped with most of his weapons, especially Osiris. But I’m sure you’ve learned a few lessons from that experience (:

Cheers from Barcelona,

Pep

PS: Matthew, can you take a look at NT’s Facebook? I left a message there regarding hellblade wikia. Thanks!

Dewi

Yes, I noticed that too. Dante’s weapons just seemed to go through his coat. He was a great looking character, but it’s true that the little details are important too. 🙂 But if the trailer is any indication of what the game will look like, Hellblade is going to be beautiful!

Jordan Lear

Thank you for continuing to share these Hellblade dev videos with us. I think they’re fantastic! Hellblade is a new IP that actually has my attention, and I love seeing more and more from it.

From the moment I saw the teaser trailer, I noticed that Senua is intended to be quite different from a typical game lead and even a typical female game lead. I love the vision you shared about the type of woman she is: not sexy, not skimpy, not skinny, etc. On that note, I would like to encourage you to push yourselves on that vision. I know you’ll likely not be showing her off in nude form, but the sculpt of her still looked fairly skinny, skimpy, sexy… Sexy is of course relative, but I think you can do something about the skinny/skimpy. I noticed defined shoulders and abdominals but her legs and back still looked very skimpy (in my opinion). May I suggest you take a look at women that do Crossfit? They are great examples of female bodies that are powerful and strong yet still agile and lean.

Zubin

Ruben

really cool! it’s so rare to see a female character with muscles and scars. Most of those aesthetics are given to female villains and are played up to be negative qualities that make them ugly or disturbing compared to the typically perfectly curvy and sexy female protagonists. can’t wait for this game!

Eon

I think the realism and how you can see all those tiny details in the makeup and blood and skin is really amazing! I like how detailed the materials her costume is made of are. You can tell that parts of it are animal skins by the unique textures. However something in the headpiece or facial features or makeup or something makes her look too much like Kai from “Heavenly Sword”(At least in my opinion) I’m not sure I understand the choice to make what almost look like animal ears on her head…I think it would look better if it was altered or removed…but those are just my thoughts on it. I’m interested to see where you end up taking this game. Also I really hope that Senua comes out as a very awesome mighty female warrior! There just aren’t enough female characters that actually have any good reason to exist in games…most of them seem to exist solely to be rescued…Which I dislike intensely! So I hope this really shows a character with a lot of mental strength as well as physical strength…and of course I think finding out about a character’s personality is really important! The more you find out about the character the more real they feel and the more I (The player) feel more interested in helping them on their quest …I’d like to see a female character the exhibits more traits that are typically thought of as “male”. I think it would help the character to have more personality and stand out from other female leads…I don’t know if my advice is worth much but I actually think it would be awesome if you made Senua a bigger woman…not necessarily fat since she’s in shape and all, but just a bigger, sturdier body shape. …Alright, I’ll stop now.

Eric J Shin

I’m really looking forward to this. Been loving watching NT evolve into a better and better studio with each game. I really want to see what they can do after the amazing combat engine they designed for DmC. It’s great to see them develop a game with a strong female character again. Heavenly Sword was one of my favorite games for the PS3.

This is looking amazing and what a brave choice to go indie AAA! I love the initial looks of the character, though I think there is still a tendency to push the design towards a more masculine framework of identity. I think it is important that the character does not lose her femininity – battle hardened or not. That layer of vulnerability is what will make her more human and more approachable for all audiences. I admire your choices to ensure she is believable and the approach you have taken is certainly more diverse than other characters in this genre – but I think allow her to be frightened, timid and to feel the pain (as opposed to wear a hardened battle posture). I see a lot of Trip in her – and that character had layers of such vulnerability and still retained that strength. Indeed, it is when we are most afraid that we become stronger – but the fear has to happen! I will watch this project keenly and with great interest. Best of luck Ninjas!!

Daniel Prem

The video was great, but I wonder if you manage to create a believable female character which is not sexy, skimpy, etc. In terms of storywriting it is a big challange to do so without using stereotypes. But so far I think you doing well and I trust you. Go on, your fanbase is watching and supporting you.

André Vila Franca

I’m really liking the artistic aproach, the main character, the monsters and the environments all look great! Now i hope the fighting mechanics are great too, i hope they’re deep and not easily mastered but at the same time entuitive, lots of amazing combos and fast movements, gory and smart. And human enemies would be cool as well!
Keep up the great work!!

Niccelson

You can’t have a character-action game without a good player-character, and this character has all my attention right now. A question that might seem a bit odd: How tall is Senua compared to the other humanoids? A couple pieces of concept art showed her being dwarfed by what I assume are titan-sized boss monsters, but I always find it interesting to see if the main character in an action game is towering over the majority of their enemies or vice versa. Makes for a subtle but interesting metaphor in my opinion.

[…] protagonist Senua into Hell, as she battles manifestations from her own mind. There’s a great development diary on her character from publisher Ninja Theory, which basically starts with them saying, we heard […]